Peek-a-boo Canyon Hike...

Peek-a-boo canyon is a slot canyon out by Kanab, UT. Merril needed to fix something in Kanab and proposed using the new early-out Friday schedule to go hiking in the afternoon. Maxine and Ellen drove over separately but met up with us. 

Mark likes climbing up into sandstone pockets.

Slot canyons are so cool looking!

Jack can be spiderman!

The canyon ended with this cave-type thing. The cave was made by rocks being wedged into the slot.

The hike was short but still a neat experience. We didn't have to hike for miles to get to the slot. We drove in the sand right to the entrance. It was all the fun with hardly any of the work.

Training...

I'm supposed to hike 20 miles down Buckskin Gulch is about 2 weeks. 😵 It's also a backpacking adventure so I have to carry my own gear. All my own gear. Usually I carry some my gear and make Merril carry all the heavy stuff! I'm also going with a bunch of gals that are super tough and I want to keep up. To train, I went over to the Quail Lake Mountain Bike and Hiking trails with a 20 pound pack. I only went 2 miles but it was a good hike. I've been resting my foot because I had some pain if I pushed off my right foot certain ways. It was doing it before Fat Man's Misery but I went anyway. I hurt it a few times on that hike but I've been really careful since then and just doing stretches. That was 3 weeks ago and it was time to try and hike on it. I was by myself but let Merril know when I was going to be done and took lots of water. This trail has a lot of up and down because it's a mountain bike trail. Because of that, I felt it would be great to train. The first thing of note that I found was a geological survey marker. 

I also found an abandoned canal. 

It reminds me of the Hurricane Canal, but on a smaller scale. It must have run from Quail before the reservoir was built and carried water to the fields? Not sure. I tried a quick google search but couldn't find out more.

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It was hot but I wasn't too worried. I could see SR-9 the entire hike. I told Merril he could basically drive to me if I needed a rescue. No rescue was needed! I hiked for an hour and came home all sweaty. It was perfect and didn't strain my foot at all. 👍

 

Yellow watermelon!

On the way back from the girl's trip in Colorado, Jeannie wanted to stop in Green River, UT to get melons. Green River is famous for its melons. The lady selling them totally sold me on this yellow one. I also purchased an Israeli melon that had white flesh and reminded Julie of a melon and a pear.

This ripe watermelon was bright yellow on the inside!

I was taking half to a party and Maxine didn't think I cleaned it out good enough. She finished it off for me. It tasted just like a red watermelon. I never knew one of these existed and I thought it was cool to try!

 

Brekky with the ladies!

Yay! Kids back in school means breakfast with the ladies! Time to chat and relax with these girls that I love!

 

Jack's Mountain Bike Race in Solider Hollow...

Mountain bike races are a little different this year because of COVID, but at least they are still happening! Jack attended his first mountain bike race up at Soldier Hollow in Park City. There can only be one spectator with the rider, so Jack and Merril went up. 

They had to wear masks and could only arrive an hour before the race and had to leave an hour after their race. 

Jack raced one lap last year. This year, he's older and is expected to race two laps. He said his second lap was harder but still finished 14th out of 64 boys in his division. 

Jack's so fun to watch on his bike. He's getting better at tricks. ❤️ 

First Day of COVID School...

Utah decided it will be okay to send kids back to school for in-person instruction if they wear masks and are better at cleaning and sanitizing. We are lucky and one of the few states that's sending kids back to school. Arizona and Nevada are only remote learning, as well as most others. I feel like they need in-person instruction so here we go!

Mikayla wanted to climb this tree at the elementary school. All of these pictures are with and without their masks. The littles have lanyards to keep their masks from getting lost. Mikayla is in 3rd grade.

The tree Mikayla was climbing is right next to Mark's classroom. Mark is in 1st.

The seniors started an hour later than the rest of school so she got to sleep in her first day. How did I not get a mask picture? Maxine is in 12th grade.

Jack and Juliet are both at the middle school this year. Do you know what that means? It means I do not have a kid at the intermediate school! YAY! The schedule for the intermediate school starts earlier than all the other schools and that makes it NOT my favorite. It's also far from my house. Jack is in 9th grade and Juliet is in 8th grade.

I think the masks are going to be annoying but the kids will rise up. I feel like I can drive the kids to school so they don't have to wear masks on the bus. Masks at 3:30 p.m. with no air conditioning would be sweltering. I told Maxine she has to take Jack and Juliet to the middle school on her way to the high school. I can pick them up in the afternoon. I'm carpooling with Lisa Nielsen for taking and dropping of the elementary school kids so that's going to be awesome as well. 

I can't believe I'm going to have all my kids in school all day! It's the first time in about 18 years that I'll have such a significant portion of the day to myself. I'll probably be doing more chores around the house. But it will also be less dirty with no one home but me. 

This is my last year before everything changes. Maxine graduates in May 2021 and then she plans to serve a mission. This is my last year that my family will be just as it is right now. After this year, it will only get bigger. 😀

Silly faces...

This silly hubcap face is brought to you by a 1953 Mercury sedan with suicide doors. 

 

Girls Trip 2020: Glenwood Springs, CO

This girls trip has been bumped twice: Mom broke her tibia/fibula by her ankle and then Corona hit after she got better. We piled into my Expedition and headed to Glenwood Springs, CO! 

Our first day was spent at the Glenwood Springs Adventure Park and Caverns. It was located up the mountain and we had to take a gondola to get up to the top.

The rides took advantage of the height and we were swung over the edge. 

The park was originally guided cave tours, which they still do. Nice and cool temperatures.

They added the rides later to help attract people. It was a ton of fun. It was a small park, compared to something like DisneyLand, but lot of fun. The Mine Drop ride was the favorite. We were strapped into a seat, the lights went off, a short video on a screen played and then DARKNESS and FALLING. Our arms grasped at each other in the darkness, trying to find something to hold onto as we plummeted 110 feet. It only took 2 seconds but it was scary to fall in the dark. Seriously AWESOME! We were there until they closed at 7:00 p.m.

The next day we, everyone else but me, played golf. I drove a cart with Jeannie. 

We drove up a canyon for a picnic lunch and card playing. We couldn't find a roadside table so we went into a campground and squatted at this reserved site, promising to leave the second anyone showed up to camp there. No one did. We ate and played cards and had a good time for a couple hours.

We dressed up for a nice dinner that night and walked around waiting for our table to be ready. We had to do a Charlie's Angels picture because that's what we do on girls trips.

Dinner was excellent!

The next day we visited some hot springs. They had pools with different temperatures and it was great! One hot tub had river rocks on the bottom to massage our feet. Fantastic!

We went back to our cute AirBNB for lunch and cards. Mom had a nap while the rest of us went shopping for souvenirs and clothes. We had dinner at a BBQ place. Early the next morning, we went for a hike before the drive home. We found this cute river hike that was chilly but exceedingly pleasant. 

I gave my coat to JoLyn because she was freezing and I was doing okay.

I do love hiking!

Then time to pack up and head home. We managed to get everything in the back of the Expedition and on the hitch basket.

It was a good, long weekend. I think some of the girls really needed it. Hopefully we didn't break Mom too much. She actually needs a torn meniscus fixed but put it off so we could go on the trip! 😳 I think she needed the weekend away the most.